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South Asian, Baroque and Contemporary Dance Step Up at Wesleyan’s Spring Faculty Dance Concert, April 8 & 9

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Second Half of Concert, Thanks for the Memories, to Honor

Artist-in-Residence Mickey Davidson

Middletown, CT, March 25, 2005—South Asian, Baroque and Contemporary dance styles meet the past, present and future when Wesleyan University’s Dance Department and the Center for the Arts present the annual Spring Faculty Dance Concert, Friday and Saturday April 8 & 9 at 8pm. Artists-in-Residence Patricia Beaman, Doretha “Mickey” Davidson and Hari Krishnan, Visiting Instructor Lisa Race and Visiting Assistant Professor Kim Root will present both new work and excerpts from existing works during the first half of the performance; the second half will feature more than 10 dancers and musicians in a farewell tribute to Davidson celebrating her many years of teaching, choreographing and performing at Wesleyan. Brenda Gray provides lighting design for the performance, which will take place at Wesleyan’s CFA Theater, located at 275 Washington Terrace in Middletown. General admission is $8 and advance reservations are recommended. More information is available by calling the box office at (860) 685-3355 or visiting www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Thanks for the Memories is Doretha “Mickey” Davidson’s journey of memories through dance, music, people and projects that she has experienced over the past seventeen years while teaching at Wesleyan. At Wesleyan, Davidson teaches Jazz and Tap, as well as numerous residencies for schools and community centers. Davidson is a primary choreographer of her own company, Mickey D. & Friends, and has also been the director of Okra Dance Company since 1993. Members of both of these companies will perform in Thanks for the Memories, under the direction of Davidson, which will include dancers Ron McKay, Loretta Abbott, Shani Borden, Ronald Burton and Kevin Gaudin; and also Newman Baker (drums), Cullen Knight (trumpet), Lisle Atkinson (bass), Jay Hoggard (vibes) and Frank Owens (piano).

Patricia Beaman will be dancing a Baroque reconstruction from a 1716 Feuillet notation, Le Passacaille d’Armide, by Anthony L’Abee, with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully, from his opera, Armide. Beaman received her BFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and her MA in Dance History from the Gallatin School at New York University. As a member of the New York Baroque Dance Company since 1984, she reconstructs eighteenth-century dance notation and lectures on dances of the period. She has been on the dance faculty of Wesleyan University since 1991 and currently teaches Dance History at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Hari Krishnan will be performing vintage Bharatanatyam (classical Indian dance form) solo dance, as well as an excerpt from his 2002 production, play, an erotic and sensual reconstruction of a 19th-century court dance style (varnam). Krishnan is a Toronto-based dancer, choreographer, teacher and dance scholar specializing in both traditional Bharatanatyam and its contemporary abstractions. He received his MA degree in Dance from York University. Krishnan is the artistic director of inDANCE, a Toronto company that presents a unique synthesis of South Asian and Western aesthetic sensibilities.

Kim Root collaborated with musician/composers Dug Dineen and Toby Twining and costume designer Leslie Weinberg to create a new work, Contours. The solo dance with live music accompaniment is the third in a series of solo dances that explore the idea of portraiture. Root has an MFA in Dance from Ohio State University and has choreographed, directed and produced over 17 dances and 10 films. She has been at Wesleyan University since 2003, where she teaches Modern Dance technique, Composition, Repertory and Dance and Technology.

In Stay, Lisa Race tells a story of a daughter pleading with her aging father to stay present and to fight off the terrifying indignities of growing old. Frightened of a future without her father, she wonders what he was like as a young man. Stay features music by Amy Denio. Race students from the Repertory and Performance class will perform a work, under her direction, celebrating the arrival of spring.

Race was honored with a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) in 1995 while performing with David Dorfman Dance. She has spent most of her career as a performer, teacher and choreographer in New York and currently teaches at Trinity/Performing Arts at La Mama in New York.

Wesleyan University’s Dance Department is located at the Center for the Arts, an 11-building complex on the Wesleyan campus that houses the departments of art and art history, film studies, music, theater and dance. The CFA serves as a cultural center for the region, the state and New England, and it includes the 400-seat Theater, the 260-seat Cinema, the World Music Hall (a non-Western performance space), the 414-seat Crowell Concert Hall and the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. Susan Lourie is the Chair of the Dance Department.

Tickets for The Spring Faculty Dance Concert may be purchased via phone or in person at the University Box Office. The box office is located on the first floor of the Davenport Campus Center (222 Church Street).  For more information about CFA performances and events, call (860) 685-3355.

Box Office Phone:    (860) 685-3355                         Address:              Wesleyan University

Box Office Fax:        (860) 685-3935                                                     222 Church Street

E-mail:                      boxoffice@wesleyan.edu                                     Middletown, CT 06459-0001

*Performers and schedule are subject to change.

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